Get Out of This Town
by HolllyAnnnSayys
Summary: The past makes you who you are today. For Mallory, the past has made her stone; rough around the edges and hard to break. Could Nick possibly be the one to change that? Or will Mallory shut him out like the rest of the world. Full Summary Inside


Get Out Of This Town

A/N: Ok so, I've written this story before for a fan site I used to own a few years ago. But when the fan site was deleted, so was the story along with the backup files on my laptop :/ So I decided, with some encouragement from my friends, to try and rewrite it. The chapters will be kind of short at first, for the sole fact that I'm trying to recreate a whole story from memory alone. To anyone who, by some miracle, got to read the original, I apologize if it isn't as good. But here goes nothing!

Intro

The past is a universal concept; we all have one, and we all must live with the choices we have made. Some people are lucky enough to have a past they are proud of, a past they love to recount to anyone who will listen. Others, like Mallory, have a past they keep in the farthest corners of their mind and never relive the memories, for there are none worth remembering. Nevertheless, the past makes you who you are today. For Mallory, the past has made her stone; rough around the edges and hard to break. But just like everyone else, Mallory has to live with her past, every day remembering the mistakes she made. As the saying goes, you can't outrun the past, it will always catch up with you.

Chapter 1

Her music was obnoxiously loud, the top to her cherry red Saturn Sky was down, and her Dolce sunglasses hid any emotion lingering in her light brown eyes as she followed the U-Haul down the interstate. She had been driving for a little over three hours, but she preferred to drive her car to the new hell her parents were dragging her to rather than ride in their private jet.

She was used to being alone with herself. She actually liked it that way, less aggravation. She spent most of her time mad at the world, but her parents didn't notice, they weren't home long enough to catch the sarcasm in every comment she made. She had every reason to be a bitch to anyone who crossed her path, not that she'd explain why or feel bad about her behavior later.

But she was leaving the old life she knew, the old friends that hated her, the old town that still blamed her for all their misery. She wasn't exactly sad to move, far from it, but the idea of starting over didn't appeal much to her. She wasn't interested in being the new kid, having all the attention pointed at her, the never ending questions she knew would smother her the moment she set foot on the campus of the school she now had to attend.

Mallory had a love/hate relationship with her mind. Most days it cooperated, shielding all thoughts or memories of the past three of her seventeen years of life. But sometimes, late at night, she couldn't stop them from seeping through the cracks. Her breath could catch in her throat and the silent scream would be lost in the night. No one would see, she would never allow anyone to see her like that. Broken.

Another hour passed, not that she noticed. The moving trucks exited the interstate and she followed them into downtown Hayden. She looked through her tinted sunglasses at the small businesses stacked side-by-side, like a town straight out of a novel. She immediately felt the contents of her breakfast coming back up.

"_Hayden, what a stupid name for a town,"_ she thought, disgusted. She had been there for five minutes and she already hated this picture-perfect town.

"_This place doesn't need a fuck-up like me, what the hell am I doing here?" _The sneer on her mouth echoed her thoughts as she continued to follow the trucks out of the business district and into the outskirts of the town.

The trucks pulled into an iron-wrought gated neighborhood. "_Of course they would buy a house in the richest part of this godforsaken town."_

She drove slowly through the neighborhood, peering at the extravagant houses with three car garages and hired workers tending the weedless flowerbeds or mowing the already perfect lawns. Sighing, she pulled into the house in the back of a cul-de-sac. The trucks parked in the street, and the men immediately jumped out of the front and began unloading the furniture.

Mallory remained seated in her car, not bothering to turn down her music, watching the men unload the newly bought furniture. She rolled her eyes. "_Of course my mother would buy all brand new furniture, spoiled flashy bitch."_

Finally turning off the engine, she slid out of her car and walked slowly to open front door. She stopped in the doorway, sighed again, and walked into the foyer. Dropping her keys on the table she continued into the kitchen where she found a note taped to the refrigerator, which was still wrapped in plastic.

_Mallory, _

_Your father and I had some business to take _

_care of at work. Be home late. Don't wait up. _

_-Your mother._

She snorted, balled up the note, and tossed it behind her. "_We haven't been in this new place for twenty minutes and they already ditch me. Don't they want to spend time with their sweet little angel of a daughter?" _

"_Yeah right," She said out loud and laughed at herself for the last part of her mental comment._

"_You know, talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity," a voice behind her said, making her jump and turn around. _

"_Um, who are you?" she asked rather rudely._

"_Maria, I live next door. Just thought I'd come over and introduce myself," Maria said with a smile. _

"_Mallory, nice to meet you, now leave," she rolled her eyes and turned walked toward the large staircase. _

"_Ok I don't know who you are, or where you came from, and personally I don't care, but I do know that you don't have to be such a bitch to someone who was just trying to be nice," Maria said following Mallory to the stairs. _

_Mallory stopped on the first step and turned around to face Maria. "You're right, you don't know me or where I came from, and I don't plan on telling you, so why don't you get out of my house."_

_Maria ignored the rudeness, took a deep breath, and started over again. "Look, Monday you're starting at Hayden High right?"_

_Mallory blinked and crossed her arms, but said nothing. _

"_That place is a prison, especially to someone new. The people there, they don't care who you are, what you wear, or how much money you have. They will rip you apart and leave you for dead. Unless you're in with the right people-" _

"_And I'm supposed to believe that you're 'the right people'?" Mallory said, one eyebrow raised. _

_Maria just shrugged. "The way I see it, you have no choice but to believe me. You can pick one of two fates. One: we start over as friends and you'll see how much better life will be on Monday. Or two: I leave and you're fucked for the next eight months."_

_Mallory thought for a second before holding out her right hand and replying, "Mallory Carter."_

_Maria smiled. "Maria Adams. Need help unpacking?"_

_A/N: Ok I know neither Nick nor Joe is in this chapter, but don't worry, they will be in chapter two. Just had to set the scene (: _


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